A Woman's Right
by isabella2004
Summary: Careless sex causes life...sometimes. Ben Stone considers his beliefs in 'Life Choice.' Warning for content.


**This fic is based on a scene from season 1, episode 12 'Life Choice'.**

**I own nothing that you recognise.**

**April 1990**

He could still remember the look on Laura's face when she had told him.

He had been dropping Peter and Pamela back at her parents house in Hartford where she had been living before getting her own place. The whole thing had been routinely awkward, her mother watching from the window and barely acknowledging him as he walked up the path holding Peter's hand and carrying Pamela in his arms. He hadn't been allowed over the threshold, Laura choosing to instead meet him at the front door, usher the kids inside and then close it over so that they were standing out on the stoop alone together.

He could still remember the way her eyes darted around, almost unwilling to meet his gaze, and he would never forget the flat tone of her voice when she announced, "I'm late."

It was almost comical to think back on it now. Genuinely, he hadn't known what she was referring to, and his mind had whirred over all the possibilities as to what she could possibly be late for. The confusion had obviously shown on his face as her eyes had narrowed at his lack of response and she had hissed, "I'm fucking late!"

It had all come flooding back to him almost immediately. Three weeks earlier, when she had come down to the city to collect some of her things from their storage locker. Neither of them had planned it but standing together in their living room, surrounded by emotional wreckage, it had almost seemed the most natural thing in the world to go to bed together. In those few brief moments of coital bliss, he had actually thought they might have had a chance to put things back together again.

"You think you're pregnant?" he had asked, his tone sounding more hopeful than he had intended.

"Jesus I hope not," she had replied, folding her arms across her chest and sighing heavily. "It's _completely _inappropriate."

"You weren't saying that at the time."

She had looked at him then with an expression that he would almost have called hate-filled. It was as if there was nothing left of the woman he had once known, the woman he had loved, married, had children with. She had changed and, to his shame, he hadn't noticed.

"If I am, I'm not keeping it. I'll go to a clinic and I'll get rid of it."

"No..." he had stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders. "No, please don't say that. Honey, if you _are_ pregnant, then it must be for a reason. We could work something out, I _know_ we could. I love you and if you _are _pregnant then it's our child. Yours and mine. Please don't say that you would have an abortion."

She had shaken him off and stepped back, her eyes hard. "It's my choice, Ben. _Mine,_ not yours. The law says that I can have an abortion and by God if I need one I'm going to have one. You really think that this is what I want? We're _separated_. I want a _divorce. _I don't want a baby!"

She had gone inside and slammed the door in his face and the only thing he had been able to do was walk back to his car, get in and drive back to the city. Hammering on the door, breaking it down, demanding that she talk to him...none of it would work. No it wasn't ideal, of course it wasn't, but abortion...he didn't believe in it, he didn't agree with it. Life began at the moment of conception, wasn't that what the church teachings had always said? They had married in church, they had made the vows...the purpose of marriage was to bring forth children and they were still married. He had been dismayed when Roe v Wade had passed. How could Laura, how could any woman, allow the life inside her to be snuffed out? Peter and Pamela...they were so perfect and he knew another child would be equally so.

It had to be some kind of sign...

Seven years later, it seemed almost poetic that he should find himself in the position of seeking to prosecute the bombers of the Chelsea Womens' Choices Center, an abortion clinic. The subject itself rarely came up around the office, but he knew that Adam was aware of how he felt about it. A few too many glasses of scotch and every judgemental, unpopular male view could be brought to the surface so easily. Since the whole sorry mess had landed in his lap a few days previously, he had almost been waiting for Adam to say it, and he hadn't had to wait long.

"Sure you don't want to recuse yourself?" the older man suggested as they sat in his office, musing over the evidence gathered so far.

"Well that's insulting," he replied tetchily. "I'm personally against abortion means I can't prosecute a bomber? What I believe doesn't matter. I represent the law."

"Amazing. Getting angry."Adam shook his head. "The most emotional issue that the law has dealt with since suffrage. Look at us, three men, talking about what rights women should have over their own bodies. Now doesn't that strike you as a little one-sided?"

It seemed a poor time to raise the issue of the lack of women in promoted positions within the DA's office but, in any event, he knew that wasn't what Adam was getting at and it pissed him off. "Adam, I have already told you my personal feelings have no impact on my ability to prosecute a criminal case and I have _never_ said that a woman does not have the right to choose!"

"Fine. Wonderful," Adam said, though it was obvious he didn't believe his protestations. "Feeling shaky on the conspiracy charge?"

He made a face, pleased at least that the content of the conversation had moved on to the _actual_ matter at hand, but no less pissed off about how little evidence there actually was.

"You'd better tie the bomb maker to the bomber with a little more than you got there."

"We prove McClure made the bomb, Donovan delivered it..."

It should, in theory, have been straightforward. But then, nothing in life ever was and he still couldn't get his head around Mary Donovan martyring herself for the cause, no matter what he believed.

"And what about Schwimmer?" Adam asked.

"That's flimsy," Paul said, his only contribution so far to the whole debate.

"And it's risky," he added. "If we tie her into the picture and it doesn't work...I wouldn't even go for an_ indictment_ with what we've got now."

"But?"

"It_ is_ a conspiracy and I want to make it stick!"

"You argue with Schiff a lot on this," Paul observed as the two of them made their way back towards his office, summarily dismissed with the helpful suggestion that they do a little more digging before potentially throwing in the towel.

He turned to face the younger man, aware that he had no read on what he thought about the issue himself. Of course, it was none of his business but with such an emotive subject at hand..."Yeah, you agree with him?"

"Oh come on Ben, it's not an issue for me," Paul replied with a laugh. "I'm not _for_ abortion, I'm for birth control."

Birth control. That might have been a good idea that afternoon in the summer of 1983 but, in the heat of the moment, neither he nor Laura had seemed that concerned about it. He had _meant_ to pull out but...well...

All other things being equal, it had probably worked out for the best when, three or four days later Laura had called him and announced that she had taken her period and that she was not, in fact, pregnant.

"Well I guess that's a relief," he had said, though he hadn't been a hundred per cent sure at the time if he had meant it.

"Of course it's a fucking relief," she had replied. "I didn't exactly _relish _the prospect of an abortion Ben, but I'm glad that the option would have been there. Adding another child to this mess would have been a _disaster._"

Seven years on, despite everything, he had to admit that she had been right.


End file.
